American Company Subjected To Cyber-Security Attacks After It Appealed A Court Ruling Dismissing Republic Of Mozambique To Ninth

Sep 8, 2015

American Company Subjected To Cyber-Security Attacks After It Appealed A Court Ruling Dismissing Republic Of Mozambique To Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals Of Mozambique

Posted By
Zein Obagi

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA—Alan Silberberg, CEO of EduMoz, LLC has
said that his company has sustained and deflected more than a thousand
attempts to hack the back end of its website, silberberginnovations.com.
That site hosts EduMoz’s work for the Republic of Mozambique, which
is evidence in a case that just concluded in the District Court, and is
on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The hacking attempts started suddenly, and have persisted since EduMoz
appealed a federal district court’s order dismissing Mozambique
from EduMoz’s complaint. The court found that the Minister of Education
Zeferino Martins lacked actual authority to contract on behalf of the
Minister of Education.

On May 25, 2011, Martins executed and affixed his country’s seal
to a contract with EduMoz. Under that contract, the Education Minister
promised to pay the American company to launch an educational fundraising
campaign called,
Educate Mozambique.

Developed by EduMoz, the
Educate Mozambique sought to pressure donors who had promised educational dollars to the
nation-state to fulfill their promises by raising attention to the progress
made by the Mozambican educational sector in recent years, and its continued
need for critical financial support.

The
Educate Mozambique campaign successfully landed the Mozambican education ministry on CBS News,
Federal Talk Radio, Huffington Post and other news major international
outlets. EduMoz’s complaint alleged that Mozambique received fulfillment
of at least $130 million in unfulfilled grants after the campaign was launched.

Asked about whether the cyber-attacks against his firm concerned him, Silberberg
stated, “Not really… whoever is responsible here is using
elementary tactics to try to access the back end of our website, and brute
force and a huge number of automated attempts to try to guess user names
and reset passwords. ” The company has reported what is believed
to be an intimidation tactic, at least, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

EduMoz is represented by the Obagi Law Group, P.C., formerly Obagi &
Stodder LLP. Lead counsel and ex-congressional candidate, Zein E. Obagi,
Jr., expresses optimism about the potential for reversal:

“There’s a difference between the Ninth Circuit and the Second
Circuit about whether apparent authority, or implied actual authority,
will suffice to bind a foreign state to contract. The cases presented
to the Ninth Circuit in the past have revolved around a purported government
agent who has engaged in clear fraud. That is not the case here. We will
take this case as far as it needs to go to protect our client and American companies
transacting business with foreign states. To that end, we have welcomed
to our legal team reputed appellate attorney Jean M. Doherty, as Of Counsel.”

The Ninth Circuit has set briefing to begin in
EduMoz v. Republic of Mozambique, et al., Case No. 15-56311 (D.C. No. 2:13-CV002309), on February 8, 2016.